Car hire and sat nav

[pmidds]

Hi everyone,

Just after a bit of advice. We have two hire cars for our upcoming trip (eight of us are going), picking up in San Francisco and then dropping off at Burbank airport 5 day's later. My wife thinks we should pre-book sat nav for them whereas I'm happy to rely on Google Maps on Android Auto or Apple Car Play.

So just wanted to know if Android Auto or Apple Car Play are enabled by default on US hire cars? We're using Thrifty for the car hire.

And if not, how's the mobile reception from San Francisco down the PCH to LA? Don't really fancy driving over there without knowing where I am or where I'm going!

[Olympiad]

Hi - there's a reasonable chance your hire car will have sat nav anyway so definitely do not pay extra for it

Android Auto and Apple Car play both make use of your phones signal and data so you will need a mobile reception for this as well - however connection is good on the west coast generally. Just check you have included US roaming in your plan. Or you can download the relevant sections of google maps to your phone and then you won't use any data but you'll lose live traffic (GPS signal doesn't use data).

Alternatively (and I did this fot a few trips before just relying on waze or google maps) is to download a dedicated sat nav app to your phone (with relevant mapp). I used co-pilot but there's a few options

[Orlando Soon]

When my son visited in April, his car was able to read his phone using apple play. He bought a SIM card from 3 and paid £10 for 16 gb data so used this and Google maps. Worked really well. We go now at the end of June and I have bought same sim, my phone is android so I have downloaded Android Auto and hope to link my phone to the rental car screen and use Google maps.

[daytonababe]

I can’t remember the last time we had a hire car that didn’t have a sat nov , and we’ve never paid extra for one.


Should the occasion arise we would just use google maps

[berneslai]

You'll probably be directed to a pool of cars that you can choose from - just choose one with Sat Nav or Android/Apple compatibility.

You'll be pretty unlucky to find one without either. It would probably have to be a really basic compact or an old SUV to miss out.

As mentioned above, download Waze as a backup to cover for every eventuality.

[pmidds]

Thanks for your replies everyone, just need to sort out a SIM for my phone now. Mine is the only one out of 8 that isn't E-SIM compatible!